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New Orleans, Louisiana (AFP) May 12, 2010 Officials in Louisiana on Wednesday reopened a small stretch of the state's coastal fishing grounds that did not appear under immediate threat from the Gulf of Mexico oil slick. Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham announced that seas off Grand Isle, reaching westward from the Empire Canal near the mouth of the Mississippi River to Belle Pass, were open again for recreational and commercial fishing. "My goal is to have people out there fishing," Barham said. "Every day we are making new assessments and decisions to give all anglers, commercial and recreational, every opportunity to utilize our state's great resources." Last week, Louisiana state officials ordered a halt to shrimp harvesting and banned fishing in some areas for at least 10 days, amid fears that oil could be contaminating the catch. Large expanses of coastal water remain closed to fishermen as an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude a day streams into the sea from a leaking pipe, fractured by the April 20 explosion and subsequent sinking of a BP-leased rig. The giant oil slick created by three weeks of unabated gushing has sorely disrupted Louisiana's 2.4-billion-dollar-a-year commercial and recreational fishing industry, impacting fishing communities and related businesses. The Department of Social Services last week requested help from the federal government, saying it would need to provide food aid to an estimated 47,000 families in 14 coastal parishes of the state hit by the oil disaster.
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New vineyard to soothe Sark's grapes of wrathSark, Channel Islands (AFP) May 12, 2010 A windswept isle in the English channel might not seem the place for a world quality vineyard, yet a project to produce the finest of tipples is underway thanks to funds from the reclusive billionaire Barclay brothers. "I was walking around the island and I just thought we could do this," Henry Strachey, a former fine art dealer and a determined oenophile, told AFP. "We're producing a lo ... read more |
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